Cafe Buunni

Let the celebrations begin

Café Buunni partners with WaterAid

Café Buunni, a community coffee shop in New York City, is celebrating the second anniversary of its flagship location in Washington Heights. At Café Buunni, founder Elias Gurmu brings some of the finest blends of beans from his native Ethiopia.

The Café Buunni team decided to mark the occasion by sharing their abundance and providing the gift of water. Buunni has pledged to match gifts from the community and donate those proceeds to WaterAid.

Elias explains why WaterAid was chosen: “Exhilarated and terrified, we will never forget how our hearts pounded that opening morning as our neighbors and friends lined up, out that door onto the sidewalk in front of Café Buunni for the first time. We wanted to thank all of our customers from the bottom of our hearts for their support, encouragement, friendship, community, feedback, and cheerleading.

"To give back in celebration and to share our joy, we are proud to launch a partnership with WaterAid, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing safe water and sanitation to those who suffer without these most basic of human needs. WaterAid is a great organization, and one that we know well.

"At Buunni we have enough water to make as many cups of delicious coffee as our customers will buy. And not just that - we're in New York City, where the quality of the water is famously top notch. To make great coffee, you don't just need beautiful beans; your water needs to be beautiful too.

"But around the world, including most coffee growing communities, the picture is not so beautiful: over 748 million people do not have access to safe water. And every day 1,400 children die unnecessarily from diarrhea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation.”

The Café Buunni team is asking the community to join them in helping to give the gift of clean water and safe sanitation to those who need it most. They will match up to $2,500 raised through Buunni's community for a total donation of $5,000 for WaterAid.